Do you think Katsuki would feel some sort of emptiness when he finally achieves number one and holds his place?
"now what"
Also, the ranking has turned to a joke. It's not mostly about skills and saves but it's about some unknown factors that weren't explained very well. All we know is: bkg dropped in the ranking because he yelled at a civilian who was invading his space while he was fighting with a villain, hagakure climbed the ranking because a glitch happened and everyone saw her, Izk was already under 100 because of teaching in ua, Katsuki climbs the ranking each time he teams up (which imo indicates it's because of better pr), so it's not what Katsuki had in mind with the old ranking. It's mostly pr and anyone can just climb it with being good in front of cameras. Because in fan book it said Katsuki had more skills than the current number one hero and the only reason he didn't reach it was stated to be "his language". So even if Katsuki changed his whole personality and became number one, the meaning of that ranking is way different from what he always wanted (surpassing AM and becoming number 1). That's why I feel like he'd hit with a wave of emptiness when he achieve it that way.
I always thought hori added the rivalry thing to the goal to prevent this, but with the way he wrote the ending, not only none of his peers was willing to compete with him anymore, but also even sidekicks weren't passionate enough to tell him they wanted to surpass him. And it's so unlike the main plot where Katsuki always inspired or provoke others to be competitive with him (even his haters in sport festival). In addition, apparently the villains and natural disasters don't exist anymore and being a pro hero is a dying job 😕 so even if Katsuki wanted to compete with anyone what would the rivalry be about? Catching cookie thieves faster? It all feels so empty to me.
Someone said he was waiting for izk because he's the strongest and he wanted to surpass the strongest but this is so wrong: 1. The only reason Katsuki didn't achieve number one was because of his language (it's word by word written in the fan book) 2. There are no criminals left so I don't understand how deku's strength would have any affect on this 3. If you think bakugou Katsuki would hold back you don't know him at all. Katsuki giving it his all means he's respecting his opponent. By claiming he didn't feel like working, you are implying he's looking down on his peers and disrespecting them. Which is a total character regression for him.
Aside from the fact that it has always been a harmful concept in the society, I feel like if they abolished the ranking it'd feel less ridiculous and empty too. And hori should have at least let Katsuki express how he feels for not achieving his dream (that he repeated every 5 sec of the series) or what he thinks about the new ranking and situation and what he wants to do from now on. But instead he was sidelined for some useless plot.